Hey Capcom: My Money is Not your Market Research

News hit recently that Capcom are bringing out an unfinished version of Megaman Legends 3 on the 3DS store in the hope that they might gauge public interest in a completed version of the game.

Before hearing this I would have been totally fine with publishers releasing bite-sized pieces of work that would directly affect development, but this act has become entirely see-through and cash hungry. Let me tell you why you shouldn’t pay a dollar for these kinds of “assurance purchases”.

Feels like they're doing this is the worst order possible. First they get fans of the series excited about a third entry, literally involve them directly in its making, now they're saying if certain conditions aren't met they'll cancel a project they've already started.

If they wanted to do it right given the age of the title they could just re-release MML1&2 to see how they do, or use the assets they have planned for MML3 to remake one dungeon from the older titles, offering a that a free or paid "demo" 3DS.

I mean the cheapest thing would be to put MML1&2 on PSN, but of course that would have people asking why MML3 wouldn't be on the PSP or NGP.

[email protected]: I'm just talking about them putting them, as well as Tron and other like titles, up on PSN.

I doubt Capcom would drop this. They had a big contest among developers for the next roll in the game, that contest in where you voted for the next main character. Next capcom says, hey! join the dev team! with all of those teaser trailers. now out of the blue, they say, well if this doesn't sell well, we'll just cancel the game.

This is a bad way to generate interest for the game. most people don't even know who trigger is, just look at when tatsunoko vs capcom. people didn't know who he was. the game is old, 10+ years old. it was on the psx and n64. most of new flood of gamers joined up during the ps2 area, so they probably don't even know about the series (as i said, see tvc).

then they come up with hey, buy our demo, then buy our game?! poor way to generate interest. even more so on a nintendo console. most people don't even know the wii has a shop. MML3:P will be a launch title for the e-shop on the 3ds. since the 3ds doesn't even have the e-shop ready, i doubt people out of the loop will know to update their 3ds' to even get the e-shop.

I wouldn't be surprised the prototype ends up being DLC after the game comes out & Capcom will charge more money for it.